NITRATES in Fahaka tank

Hi guys

Hope your all keeping well and safe.

I've had my puffer for well over 3 months, and doing great. Growing nicely and got such a character on him.

We know these are messy eaters, produce loads of waste and leave stuff in tank.

What should my nitrates really be..

My water parameters are this latest reading.

No3 30
No2 0
Gh 8
Kh 10
Ph 7.2
Cl2 0

Nirtates do go down to below 10 after 50% water change. He is a very happy boy swims around loads, greats me everytime walk past tank. He does breath a little heavy at time, but think that when he full

You want ammonia and nitrite levels to be at 0 at all time.

You want nitrates to be as close to 0 at all times. However, this is hard to do so we normally recommend keeping them below 20ppm. If you can keep it below 10ppm, that is even better.

Colin_T said:

You want ammonia and nitrite levels to be at 0 at all time.

You want nitrates to be as close to 0 at all times. However, this is hard to do so we normally recommend keeping them below 20ppm. If you can keep it below 10ppm, that is even better.

Click to expand...

My ammonia and nirites are always 0, can't remember last to r was higher.

OK will try some nitrates ninus by tetra. As my water change not until Wednesday

Don't add chemicals to reduce nitrates. Just do water changes.

Colin_T said:

Don't add chemicals to reduce nitrates. Just do water changes.

Click to expand...

OK, shall I do a 70% water change now then or wait until Wednesday when I do changes

I completely agree with Colin, both posts. Spot on.

When nitrates occur within the aquarium (meaning, nitrate is not entering via the source water but solely from the biological system) it is easy to keep them very low. For over ten years my several tanks have always tested in the 0-5ppm range with the API liquid test, no matter when I tested. I always test prior to the weekly water change, unless I do a couple of spot checks mid-week. Keeping the fish load in balance for the tank, not overfeeding, keeping the organics out of the filter, and 60-70% weekly water changes--all these help. And live plants, especially floating which take up a lot of ammonia and that means no nitrite and little or no nitrate down the line.

Byron said:

I completely agree with Colin, both posts. Spot on.

When nitrates occur within the aquarium (meaning, nitrate is not entering via the source water but solely from the biological system) it is easy to keep them very low. For over ten years my several tanks have always tested in the 0-5ppm range with the API liquid test, no matter when I tested. I always test prior to the weekly water change, unless I do a couple of spot checks mid-week. Keeping the fish load in balance for the tank, not overfeeding, keeping the organics out of the filter, and 60-70% weekly water changes--all these help. And live plants, especially floating which take up a lot of ammonia and that means no nitrite and little or no nitrate down the line.

Click to expand...

I'm gonna do a 60% water change tomorrow then, and will test the water after adding water conditioner a few hours later. I do net out the fahaka waste every other day. He is just a messy eater

As @Byron pointed out floating live plants help by absorbing ammonia, Some good floating plants are hornwort, moneywort, anacharis, and water sprite. I have all of these in my tanks. You can let them float or "plant" them if you want. Nice looking fish.

Retired Viking said:

As @Byron pointed out floating live plants help by absorbing ammonia, Some good floating plants are hornwort, moneywort, anacharis, and water sprite. I have all of these in my tanks. You can let them float or "plant" them if you want. Nice looking fish.

Click to expand...

My ammonia is 0, I live the thought of floating plates, will have a look into them. Thank you

+3? On fast growing floating plants that convert nutrients (aka pollution) like ammonia (and other elements) into plant tissue that we eventually remove in trimmings.The beauty (I feel) with floating plants is because of their proximity to the light, they typically grow well under ANY lighting while deeper water plants often require brighter lighting and/or an extended photo period. (Many, if not most tank setups come with lighting that's fine for viewing fish, but not necessarily good for a planted tank. But because floating plants are so close to the light, they tend to do well under nearly all lights.

I switched all my tanks over to plant lights, not as bright as viewing lights but I have tetras mostly and they prefer the shade.

Marc West said:

My ammonia is 0, I live the thought of floating plates, will have a look into them. Thank you

Click to expand...

I thought it might help to explain a bit further. If this is "old news," just ignore it, but I've no idea as to your level of understanding in the hobby and it is important for each of us to know what is going on in the aquarium. Natural laws govern everything in there, and the less we fiddle with it the better and safer for the fish.

Ammonia is readily and continually being produced by fish and other organic processes. Nitrosomonas sp. bacteria once established will take this up, producing nitrite as a by-product. Then Nitrospira sp. bacteria take up the nitrite and nitrate is produced as a by-product. Nitrate is less deadly than the other two, but long-term it will harm fish. Nitrate is kept under control with water changes, filter cleanings, substrate vacuuming, not overfeeding, not overstocking...and plants.

With the plants we come to a similar but very different process. Live plants need nitrogen, and aquatic species prefer ammonia/ammonium. Plants, those that are faster growing (stem plants, especially floating plants) are actually faster at assimilating the ammonia/ammonium than the bacteria. The benefit with plants is they do not produce nitrite, and thus no nitrate either; and they also take up all sorts of "stuff" from the water.

Ammonia will always be zero if there are live plants growing, and/or the bacteria are established, and the maintenance includes the afore-mentioned aspects (para 2 above). Nitrite also should never show up. Nitrate will be minimal (if all is balanced and maintenance is as mentioned).

plants do not take up much in the way of nitrate; their benefit is in taking up so much ammonia, so there is subsequently less nitrite and less nitrate. Floating plants are often called "ammonia sinks," and botanists will tell us that it is almost impossible to overreach this aspect. Though we should not try to.